46 entries, two decades of typing.
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- API Developer of the Year - Xero
A big thank you to the guys at Xero for awarding me API Developer of the Year for my work on Xeroizer. I have been a big fan of Xero and its community for a couple of years now and it's great to be able to give back…
- Xeroizer now installable with gem
A minor update to the Xeroizer library, it is now installable with plain-old rubygems. To install the latest alpha release: gem install xeroizer Please feel free to try it out and provide feedback through github.
- Xeorizer Updated to Xero API V2.06
Well, that was quicker than I expected. Xeroizer has now been updated to support the Xero API V2.06 including: - Manual journal create/update/view (can only create draft invoices for now) - Inventory items…
- Xero API Release V2.06
Today Xero released some extra functionality to their API including JSON responses, manual journal entry, items and PDF invoices. Of great interest to me is the ability to download PDF invoices directly from Xero which…
- Sport - what are we doing to our children?
I was recently going through some of my old paperwork and I pulled out my copies of the QCS tests I took to assist in classifying my overall position when graduating high school back in 1999. I read through these tests…
- Selecting an element/object in an IFRAME
I recently needed to get an object from a child IFRAME from its parent. Without using any helper libraries, the easiest way to do this is with the following: View embedded code on gist.github.com
- A JRuby/Rails Message Driven Bean
A while ago I found this tutorial on getting an EJB message-driven bean up and running utilising JRuby and Rails at http://nodnol.org/blog/chris/entry/a\jruby\rails\message\driven. This website now appears to be down so…
- Open letter to the Australian NBN2 detractors
What's the point of the National Broadband Network Version 2.0 (NBN2)? It seems simple to me, the existing copper network is aging and unmaintained. What do we replace it with? Wireless services, on the face of it, seem…
- iPhone 4 and Telstra
I just couldn't stand the speed of iOS4 (or iOS3 for that matter) on my iPhone 3G any more. Thankfully, my Optus plan was over, so getting a new phone was a no-brainer and, after seeing the iPhone 4 and its sexy glass…
- The dangers of success
Notch, creator of Minecraft, really shouldn't post on his blog. Every time he talks about something that isn't releasing new code, or fixed bugs, he gets inundated by negative feedback by shit players that want updates…
- Borders: Rhodia & Clairfontaine
I was disappointed to see that Borders decided to stop stocking Moleskine notebooks. I guess the Australian public (unsurprisingly) didn't enjoy paying $33 for a small notebook, no matter how good it was. Not too big of…
- Task Management
OK, after playing a little more I have decided to try Remember the Milk as suggested by Rohan and others. Likes: - Fast, especially for non-Australian servers - Quick add shortcuts cool Dislikes: - Ugly (in my opinion)…
- iTunes 10
“iTunes 10 feels like an iTunes clone” \- Jon Maddox sums it up nicely.
- Task Management Options
The quantity of small tasks with fluid priorities is starting to get to me and I've decided to attempt to use electronic task management again, even though all my previous attempts have caused me to give up, sometimes…
- Combining Typefaces
Smashing Magazine has just released an article on combining typefaces. Whilst this is a great primer on the differences between typefaces, I can't understand why they have chosen to use different font/background colours…
- Xeroizer ruby library
Given that Xero (cue the hyperbole about how Xero is great) has just updated their development API and they are planning to do this much more in the future, I have taken this opportunity to create my own ruby-based…
- Bacon is still spam and still very interruptive
I really have let the amount of mail I receive every day that is just advertising material sneak up on me. I made a decision a couple of weeks ago to unsubscribe from basically every one of these lists I very rarely…
- Everyone is a programmer
After reading this article I wrote this article with one mouse click I realised that the requirement for writing code is becoming more and more important to professions other than software development. This idea is…
- Word/Excel HTTP POST
A little essoteric, but I recently needed to post some merge fields on a Word application form to a server to save on rekeying when the application form is completed. Thankfully, VBA in Word can utilise any of the…
- QuickBooks and Terminal Services
I couldn't find anything on the Quicken (Australia) website about which version of QuickBooks was necessary to be able to use it via Windows Terminal Services so, after waiting 10 minutes on-hold to ask a simple…
- Xero is greater than the rest
Well, that title definitely sounds like a marketing introduction but I swear, I have no affiliation with Xero apart from thinking that they have some of the best SME accounting software that I've come across. Being…
- yUML makes UML fun?
Thankfully, due to the way I work and the 'clients' I work for I have few requirements to diagramme the applications I work on. However, there is the odd occassion where I need to create documentation for less (or…
- Stop printing document properties summary page in Word 2007
I don't know how it happend, but a colleagues version of Word 2007 recently started printing a document properties summary page at the end of each print job. It took me about 20 minutes searching the Internet for a…
- Farewell AFK Café
AFK Cafe, the first café created for Geeks has shut its doors today. AFK combined great food, a relaxed atmosphere and gaming PCs to create a place where geeks could be themselves located in Woolloongabba, Brisbane,…
- Vodafone Australia's iPhone Plans
Well, it seems the Vodafone Australia has just released its iPhone plans and surprisingly, they are even more expensive than Optus' plans. Starting at $69 per month (plus $189 for the 8GB or $309 for the 16GB iPhone),…
- Updated AllMyFunds Website
After much feedback from our clients, partners and the community about our original website, we've made some updates. So, come on over and check out the new, bigger, better and faster AllMyFunds website and see how it…
- ActiveRecord and programmatically working with attributes.
Ruby on Rails is great. Partially because of all the ORM stuff and partially because Ruby is infitely extendable and overrideable (yes, I just made that word up). On my current project, I have a lot of extended…
- Add all non-versioned controlled files to the subversion repository
Just wrote a small one-liner to add all non-version controlled files in the current path and down to a subversion repository without any unecessary warning messages or errors. I have only tested this on Cygwin so far,…
- TIBCO General Interface
With all the work I've been doing with Ruby on Rails recently, I haven't given much thought to the advancements being made for web-based application development. However, yesterday I stumbled across TIBCO's General…
- GMail Now Supports IMAP
It's been a long time coming (and I haven't yet seen an official announcement by Google) but IMAP is now supported in GMail and I can now change the way I handle backing up of my GMail account (and back up everything…
- All My Funds - Low-cost Subscription-based Superannuation
As everyone may have noticed, I haven't been posting a huge amount over the last 12 months, but there has been a reason. We have just launched All My Funds, a low-cost subscription-based superannuation service. All My…
- iPhone and iPod Touch User-Agent HTTP Header
I have had the opportunity to recently get my hands on an iPod Touch specifically to do web-development to work with it's fully-featured Safari web browser. These applications need specialised formatting for these…
- Dealing with codes - phonetic_alphabet plugin (Ruby on Rails)
Most fonts are designed for readability of words, not complicated codes and recently, we've had to provide referreral codes to our partners so that we can track the applications that come from them. Instead of…
- Planners hope to transform super industry
OK, I apologise for the cross-posting but I do believe that all Australians should at least look at our product. MEDIA RELEASE SPECIALIST financial planning company All My Funds is applying the discount broker model to…
- Rails is truly amazing.
I can never get over how truly amazing Ruby on Rails is. I was recently asked to create a quick and nasty demo application to showcase some of my skills. So, following the provided specs, I whipped up the following…
- Good vs Great software developers.
I was recently asked an interesting question as to whether I perceive myself to be a great developer. As someone who's previously been responsible for employing technical staff, here are my opinions on the differences…
- A brave new world.
I find it important to stay as informed as possible about the "goings-on" in the world. As a result, I read a lot of blogs and paper-based journals. Finally, I feel I should contribute to this truly global community of…
- Efficiency of HTTP Push Vs Pull
I'm working on a new application (StaffLocation.com) that requires the ability to stream live data from a server to the client web application via JavaScript. There are two methods that I could approach this. The first…
- Ruby on Rails - ActiveRecord#build_from_xml function
I was playing with the new toxml feature of Ruby on Rails and I found myself wondering... if you can create XML from ActiveRecord objects, why can't you create ActiveRecord objects from XML? After searching for a while…
- Argh... sickness
Sometimes I think the world is conspiring against me. Only a day after announcing I would get the second article released on the server-push topic, I come down with the flu. Now I don't know how the common cold affects…
- I'm not dead yet
Hey everyone. Sorry for not posting in a while (wow, it's been over a month). I promise I haven't abandoned yet another blog, it's just been crazy of late working both on StaffLocation and my day job over at QPFL (nb:…
- JotSpot Backpeddles
Well, it appears that after my little discussion with Ryan this morning JotSpot has decided to update their FAQ (not yet present on their website). The new FAQ for anyone looking at using JotSpot's affiliate program is:…
- I thought I liked JotSpot
Every six months or so I usually come across a product that has an affiliate program and decide to have a go at trying to monetize it via online advertising media. Usually, this flutter ends up costing me more money…
- Just Ask!
Well, it seems that if you wait... just long enough, you may just get what you wished for. I was just finishing my implementation of a scalable push solution for real-time web-based applications when I was asked to…
- Multiple Values from Scriptaculous' Autocomplete
Ever wanted to extract multiple values from a Script.aculo.us Google Suggest-like autocomplete text field? I recently did and here's how. If you aren't aware of how to use autocomplete text fields, please read over the…
- Javascript Graphing
I recently had a requirement to create a proof-of-concept "what-if" calculator for a new product I'm involved in which will launch in the first quarter of next year. Now, I prefer to write web-based applications because…